Over the past few years, one question has come up over and over again about Scientology which I decided needed a video all its own to answer. Sometimes this question is taken as a kind of attack against former Scientologists but most of the time I’m pretty sure it’s not meant that way. Take a watch and let me know what you think.
The Smartest and Stupidest Scientology Question
Tags:scientology
Here are 10 predisposing factors that may facilitate attraction to a cultic system:
– A desire to belong
– Unassertiveness (the inability to say no or express criticism or doubt)
– Gullibility (impaired capacity to question critically what one is told, observes, thinks, and so forth)
– Low tolerance for ambiguity (need for absolute answers, impatience to obtain answers)
– Cultural disillusionment (alienation, dissatisfaction with the status quo)
– Idealism
– Susceptibility to trance-like states (in some cases, perhaps, due to prior hallucinogenic drug experiences)
– A lack of self-confidence
– A desire for spiritual meaning
– Ignorance of how groups can manipulate individuals.
Great video, Chris. Every time I see that question asked on FB I just want smack the poster. You are being very kind to those insensitive “never-ins” Now I can just direct them to this video! Thank you.
Hi, Chris. Your’s seems to be the thesis of the majority and of the experts. I am the dissenting opinion.
When I got involved at age 17, I had read the history of man and Scientology 8-8008. I didn’t know about Xenu but I knew about gorilla goals, doll bodies, the weeper and all sorts of other 1940s SF nuttiness. And Hubbard’s picture was not shown with rotten teeth but L.Ron was not an OK guy. He wore a sailor suit. He had photos taken of him in the most pretentious poses and the cowboy Ron shot would come out very soon. To anyone with their eyes open just a bit, he was a looney. In fact, almost everyone at the cult office was an ex-hippy. Yorkville (our Haight-Ashbury) was only two blocks away. The hippy Scientologists had taken one too many acid trips. And I am not exaggerating the acid trips. They talked to the auditors about the acid trips and the auditors talked to me.
There was also the concentration on money. There was no two ways about that. It was because of the money grubbing that I didn’t start on staff. After I pledged to be on staff the money grubbers were still coming around. Being a staff member was no shield against them.
Moreover, I am one of 18 cousins. Seven of us (including an aunt and an uncle) got signed up. I propose to you that if you took an outsider and let them spend a day with my family, then said to the outsider, “Seven will sign up. Who are they?” the outsider would have guessed most or all. There was something about us.
Speaking for myself, it was a tough time in my life. It wasn’t hard to find my ruin. Scientology seemed like a better alternative than school, friends and neighbours and my nuclear family. Obviously, I made a huge mistake but I made it even though I knew about the space nonsense, Hubbard and the money.
I didn’t stay with it though there were tremendous pressures for me to stay. I am not suggesting that I was heroic in any way in leaving. But people who are close to me told me that all the while (in one case 23 years) there was a little voice inside their head saying, “I have been conned, I have been conned, I have been conned”. I give myself credit for paying more attention to that little voice than they did. But I don’t give myself as much credit as is deserved to the many cousins who were under the same pressures and had the sense to stay out.
He’s not saying LRon is an okay guy, he’s saying he *thought* he was growing up due to how he was raised.